New Orleans led the nation's TV markets in overnight ratings for the LSU-Ohio State BCS Championship game.

According to a Fox news release, the Monday night game, carried locally by WVUE-Channel 8, scored a 52.3 local rating (with each rating point representing 6,000 TV households throughout the metro area) and a 66 share (the percentage of viewership among all sets in use).

Nationally, the game attracted 23.1 million viewers, down 17 percent from last year's Florida-Ohio State BCS Championship game, but still good enough to be the second-highest broadcast of the September-to-May TV season so far (behind only an NBC NFL Wildcard game).

Fox estimates that a total of 52 million viewers tuned into see to at least part of the LSU-Ohio State game. Viewership for Monday's game peaked at about 8 p.m., but began to decline when LSU pulled away from a 10-10 tie with Ohio State.